A feeling of deja vu
31/08/2007 The Star

PENANG: A Proton Saga was partially crushed by a boulder following a rockslide at the car park of the Wayton flats in Paya Terubong here.

A housewife, who declined to be named, said she was preparing lunch when she suddenly heard a loud crash at about 1pm yesterday.

“I looked down from my 8th floor unit and saw a Proton with its back totally crushed by a boulder. Luckily, there were no other cars parked near it. I quickly ran out of my unit with my two sons as I feared a landslide would occur,” she said when met at the scene.

She added that a major landslide had occur-red in 1998, barely 300m from the spot.

Paya Terubong Village Security and Deve-lopment Committee chairman Teoh Han Chong, 43, said rain over the past few days had caused the boulder to dislodge.

“I will ask the Public Works Department (JKR) to clear the debris and conduct imme-diate checks on the slopes. Remedial works must be done on dangerous slopes if there are any.”


Crushed: A boulder and earth tumbled down a slope onto the back portion of this car.
On Nov 28, 1998, three huge boulders, one of them the size of a double-storey house, came crashing down a cliff, stopping just 10m from a block apartments occupied by over 1,200 people.

The boulders rolled down Bukit Saujana during a landslide that buried 14 cars, a factory bus and a motorcycle parked by the side of the road.

The authorities took almost a month to blast and clear the boulders, including one estimated to weigh 5,500 tonnes.